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The Spanish American wars of independence were the numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America that took place during the early 19th century, after the French invasion of Spain during Europe's Napoleonic Wars. These conflicts started in 1809 with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville. When the Central Junta fell to the French invasion, in 1810, numerous new juntas appeared across the Spanish domains in the Americas. The conflicts among these colonies and with Spain eventually resulted in a chain of newly independent countries stretching from Argentina and Chile in the south to Mexico in the north in the first third of the 19th century. Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule until the Spanish–American War in 1898. The new republics from the beginning abolished the casta system, the Inquisition and nobility, and slavery was ended in all of the new nations within a quarter century. Criollos (those of Spanish descent born in the New World) and mestizos (those of mixed Indian and Spanish blood) replaced Spanish-born appointees in most political offices. Criollos remained at the top of a social structure which retained some of its traditional features culturally, if not legally. For almost a century thereafter, conservatives and liberals fought to reverse or to deepen the social and political changes unleashed by those rebellions. These conflicts were fought as Irregular warfare and Conventional warfare, and both wars of national liberation and civil wars, since on the one hand the goal of one group of belligerents was the independence of the Spanish colonies, and on the other the majority of combatants on both sides were Spanish Americans and indigenous people, not Spaniards. Both armies originated from Spanish colonial troops of Americas. While some Spanish Americans believed that independence was necessary, most who initially supported the creation of the new governments saw them as a mean to preserve the region's autonomy from the French. Over the course of the next decade, the political instability in Spain and the absolutist restoration under Ferdinand VII convinced more and more Spanish Americans of the need to formally establish independence from the mother country. The events in Spanish America were related to the other wars of independence in Haiti and Brazil. Brazil's independence, in particular, shared a common starting point with Spanish America's, since both conflicts were triggered by Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, which forced the Portuguese royal family to resettle in Brazil in 1807. The process of Latin American independence took place in the general political and intellectual climate that emerged from the Age of Enlightenment and that influenced all of the Atlantic Revolutions, including the earlier revolutions in the United States and France. A more direct cause of the Spanish American wars of independence were the unique developments occurring within the Kingdom of Spain and its monarchy during this period. ==Historical background== Several factors set the stage for wars of independence. First the Bourbon Reforms of the mid-eighteenth century introduced changes to the relationship of Spanish Americans to the Crown. In an effort to better control the administration and economy of the overseas possessions the Crown reintroduced the practice of appointing outsiders, almost all ''peninsulars'', to the various royal offices throughout the empire. This meant that Spanish Americans lost the gains they had made in holding local offices as a result of the sale of offices during the previous century and a half. In some areas—such as Cuba, Río de la Plata and New Spain—the reforms had positive effects, improving the local economy and the efficiency of the government.〔Lynch, ''The Spanish American Revolutions'', 17–19, 334–335. Rodríguez, ''The Independence of Spanish America'', 19–27. Kinsbruner, ''Independence in Spanish America'', 7–12.〕 In other areas, the changes in crown's economic and administrative policies led to tensions with locals, which at times erupted into open revolts, such as the Revolt of the Comuneros in New Granada and the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II in Peru. Neither of these two eighteenth-century developments—the loss of high offices to Criollos and the revolts—were the direct causes of the wars of independence, which took place decades later, but they were important elements of the political background in which the wars took place.〔Lynch, ''Spanish American Revolutions'', 5–17. Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 24–25. Kinsbruner, ''Independence in Spanish America'', 12–14, 17–32.〕 Other factors included Enlightenment thinking and the examples of the Atlantic Revolutions. The Enlightenment spurred the desire for social and economic reform to spread throughout Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Ideas about free trade and physiocratic economics were raised by the Enlightenment in Spain. The political reforms implemented and the many constitutions written both in Spain and throughout the Spanish world during the wars of independence were influenced by these factors.〔Lynch, ''Spanish American Revolutions'', 27–34. Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 14–18. Kinsbruner, ''Independence in Spanish America'', 14–17, 23.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spanish American wars of independence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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